A spokeswoman for the national church, Neva Rae Fox, has said even if leaders or individual members of a diocese leave, the diocese itself stays within the Episcopal Church.
[Tom] Woodle said any church that wishes to remain in the Episcopal Church ”” which is effectively the U.S. branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion ”” can make that move, though he only expects five or six to do so. The problems between the diocese and Lawrence run deeper than disagreements over homosexuality and church property, he said.
“The press has made this out to be only about openly gay bishops and priests, but we see that as a symptom of a flawed Christology in the Episcopal Church,” Woodle said. “The overwhelming majority in the denomination are revisionists. What they’ve decided is that Jesus is a way, a truth and a life, not the way, the truth and the life.”
Nothing – – – absolutely nothing – – will kill the church faster or more successfully than the church deciding, on its own, that Jesus is a “peachy keen guy” who has some – – maybe even most – – of the answers to life. That is, and should be, the death knell of the church.
“What they’ve decided is that Jesus is a way, a truth and a life, not the way, the truth and the life.â€
brilliant and accurate.
I continue to believe that it may well be that the wisest course for Bp. Lawrence to take–sometime before the end of the 60-day period for response to the pending disciplinary charges against him–would be to respond to the charges by filing a denial, since said charges should ultimately be found to be legally without merit because they simply fail to allege an offense as a matter of law, and, as a result, should be dismissed. In the meantime, others–from within ECUSA and many places throughout the Communion–have some time to persuade reasonable individuals within ECUSA to prevail upon the leadership to change its direction. On their face, statements of a general nature concerning the consequences of individuals, etc., “leaving” ECUSA shouldn’t be viewed as valid universally. I seem to a ruling some time ago by the Supreme Court of South Carolina specifically involving the issue of whether there’s an existing trust of the property of parishes in South Carolina for the benefit of ECUSA (a ruling that perhaps ECUSA would prefer to forget). A recent statement by a justice of the Texas Supreme Court to the effect that a church can say who its members are but it CANNOT determine what’s a trust, should serve to shed light on issues relevant to “leaving” ECUSA, at least in some jurisdictions.